This invention relates to an automatic cash dispensing machine capable of automatically issuing an amount of money which a customer designates by means of an identification medium, such as an identification card (hereinafter referred to as the ID card).
Cash dispensing machines of this type, which have rapidly come into wide use for the rationalization of service at tellers' windows, generally have such construction as shown in FIG. 1, by way of example, and may be disposed in the doorways of banks or embedded in walls with only the panels for customers' operations exposed from the wall surface.
In any case, the dispensing machines of such conventional type, handling a large amount of money, resemble real property in specifications--oversized and heavy or of embedded-in-the-wall type for the prevention of thefts. As regards the panels for customers' operations, moreover, most of the prior art dispensing machines are so constructed that a keyboard a for the designation of an amount to be paid and a guide display unit b for the operating instructions are arranged on a substantially horizontal panel c, and that an inlet d for identification medium such as ID cards and an outlet e for cash and receipt slips are formed in a substantially vertical panel f rising on the rear edge of the horizontal panel c. That is, the customer-operation panels c and f are apparently recessed. Thus, the depth of the region of the panels is limited, so that the internal mechanisms are dispersed in the upper or lower space inside the dispensing machine. Accordingly, the machine body cannot help being tall.
Undoubtedly, the bulkiness and heaviness have so far been regarded as requisites to the machine body from a point of view of crime prevention, and presented no problems.
Recently, however, compactness and lightness have come to be required of these automatic cash dispensing machines. This can be attributed to a demand for such a mode of application that a plurality of cash dispensing machines are mounted on a service counter of a bank over which a clerk in charge may observe how the machines are operated, for the rationalization of payment service at the teller's window of the bank, for example. Otherwise, such compact and light machines may be needed for the economy of space because of the limited setting spaces in and outside the bank building.